Element Californium, Cf

History

The member of actinide or actinoid group of chemical elements - Californium had been discovered in February of 1950 by Stanley G. Thompson, Albert Ghiorso, and Glenn T. Seaborg at the Berkeley Laboratory of the University of California. Californium isotope was obtained by bombardment of micrograms of curium with alpha-particles (helium ions). It was identified in minute amount, around 5000 atoms, and was called after California, the state in which it had been discovered. Since this element is the chemical homolog of dysprosium, a rare earth element the name of which is translated from Greek as "hard to get at", and the element 98 was also hard to get at a century later in California.